Self portraits

Today is a significant day in the world however being as young as we are; we are fortunately unaware of its enormity. We went on with our day as we usually do, engrossed in our play, creating friendships, learning, laughing, singing, and doing so many wonderful things at school.

Upstairs we looked at the large map on the floor as well as the flags surrounding the map. Darren gave us some information about a flag and then we would try to see if we could find it. This is called Figure Ground Perception which is a skill that we need to develop in order to be able to find something among a lot of detail. We had to find one with many red and white stripes plus stars and many more. We learnt the names of some of the countries especially the ones that we can relate to; and we placed ribbon on the map from the flags to their corresponding countries e.g. USA, UK, Germany and Japan.

 Today we did self-portraits at the activity table. We looked at the small wooden mannequin and used it as a guide to help us recall the different body parts. Following on from this we sang “Hands, hands, hands, hands, let’s all clap our hands”. In this song, we learnt about the different things that you can do with the various parts of our bodies. Eyes blink, heads shake, feet stamp, noses sniff etc. We read “The Foot Book” and guessed the words from looking at the pictures e.g. wet feet, dry feet, fast and slow etc. Outside in the park, Shoko enjoyed running around holding hands with Tokutaro. Jennifer played hide and seek with her teachers using the bench and bushes as her hiding places. Nico, Miya and FJ spent time in the sandbox where they dug holes, filled them up with water and then scooped the mud out only to do the same thing again and again. Nico enjoyed watching the water from the waterwheel splash onto his feet. Miya’s baby brother Liam and Ava’s baby sister, Lily were having a play date in the park so they joined us in the sandbox and became completely involved in our They were playful brown all over when they left the park!

Downstairs we played with our names on flashcards and the plastic letters. We spent time playing with them at the table, using them as we wanted to. When we sat down on the mat later in the morning we played a more structured game with singing and matching. We sang the initial sounds of our names e. g. Tokutaro, Tokutaro t, t, t, Tokutaro, Tokutaro t, t, t; Lily, Lily l, l, l, Lily, Lily, l, l, l etc. We then took the flashcards and tried to find the initial sound that matched the plastic letters.

 We helped Shelley build the marble construction and watched the small balls rolling down the chutes. We were curious each time we put the balls on the top and bent down to see where they were going. Some of the pieces of this construction are transparent so we could see the ball in certain places as it travelled along. We did some bead threading at another of our activity tables using laces and plastic shapes. These shapes help us develop our vocabulary as our teachers ask us if we know what they are and help us name them while we are threading. We listened to the “Brown Bear” story again and we made our teachers laugh. When we saw the green frog we all said that it was a turtle……and even when they told us that it was a frog, we still said that it was a turtle. They think that we were pulling their leg….which means we were tricking them. Hahahahaha. We sang our “Hello” song and pretended that we were playing the piano today. We played the piano on our knees; we played it on our tummies; we played it on our shoulders; we played it on our heads; we played it on our legs and then we played it on the floor. Yesterday we forgot to tell you that we learnt the concepts front and back. When we look at someone’s face, this is the front of their body and when they turn around and cannot see their face; this is the back of their body. We all had a turn to show our friends the front and back of our body.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Christine, Nanako, Sabine, Ayaka and Goh.